Maybe not better but different. I was messing around with the simple foam caddis I posted the other day and was heating the tail end to taper it down towards a point.

It looked anbetter than trying to cut it and an even better side effect was it discolored in a good way. The flame somewhat singed the tan foam I was using to a darker brown in some areas. After experimenting some I could get some good looking mottled/blended tan and darker brown colors, looked more natural if you can say that about a piece of foam.

Also did some yellow and green and liked them too but looked best on the tan.

Too long and it will catch on fire (easy to blow out) but a few quick passes over the flame gives a nice effect. I usually take a sharpie and make a few black or brown squiggles on my flies just to break up the solid foam color, but I like this better.

Didn't get any pics but maybe I will later. Just thought I'd share, bass around here aren't very picky but trout are rumored to be more so.